Sunday, December 16, 2012

Hayao Miyazaki's first film in five years

Oscar-winning Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki's first film in five
years - a wartime romance - will be released next year, its distributor
has said.

Miyazaki, who created "Spirited Away", which won Best Animated Feature
in 2003, and "Ponyo" (2008), will release "Kaze Tachinu", based on the
novel of the same name, usually translated as "The Wind Has Risen",
distributor Toho said on Thursday.

The film's hero is modelled on flight engineer Jiro Horikoshi, who
designed the Zero fighter, Japan's best known World War II fighter
aircraft.

In a career that has spanned five decades, Miyazaki has achieved
critical and commercial success around the globe, blazing a trail for
the genre of Japanese cartoons - known as anime.

Miyazaki collaborator Isao Takahata will also release his first new film
in more than a decade next year. "Kaguyahime no Monogatari" will be
based on Japan's oldest novel "Taketori Monogatari" (The Tale of the
Bamboo Cutter) believed to have been written more than 1,000 years ago.